Wayfinders: Leader as Guide

Supporting Young Adults to Step into Adulthood

Leader-as-Guide Training

Mentoring and Building Community to support Young Adults (Online)

April 7, 9, 14 & 15, 2026
3:00 PM – 5:30 PM (PT)

Wayfinders is built on the understanding that transformation happens in relationship — and relationship requires the capacity to listen.

The Leader-as-Guide Training equips mentors, social workers, educators, first responders, and community leaders with the foundational practice that holds the Wayfinders container: Listening Circle.

This is not a communication skills workshop.
It is formation in how to create a supportive environment for self development.

Through guided practice and reflection, you will learn how to create environments where people can cross thresholds safely — where story can be spoken, where identity can evolve, and where insight can emerge without being forced.


What You Will Learn

Using Listening Circle and Mentoring principles, you will learn how to:

✔ Mentor without controlling outcomes
✔ Facilitate dialogue that builds trust rather than polarization
✔ Strengthen community across difference
✔ Support young adults through transition without rescuing or advising
✔ Develop discernment in moments of uncertainty
✔ Work with silence, story, and range of emotions skillfully


Who This Training Is For

This training is designed for:

  • Social workers

  • Community mentors

  • Youth leaders

  • First responders

  • Educators

  • Organizational leaders

  • Those preparing to serve as Wayfinders mentors

It is especially relevant for leaders who:

  • Work with young adults in transition

  • Carry responsibility for building community

  • Navigate complexity and emotional intensity

  • Want to deepen their ability to listen without fixing


What You Will Walk Away With

By the end of this training, you will be able to:

✔ Facilitate Listening Circles with clarity and steadiness

✔ Recognize developmental differences in how people speak and listen

✔ Support group regulation during emotionally charged conversations

✔ Reduce reactivity and increase discernment

✔ Build trust across generational and cultural divides

✔ Apply circle practice within your own organization or community

You will also deepen awareness of your own leadership patterns — especially how you relate to authority, silence, uncertainty, and power.


A Grounded, Research-Informed Practice

Listening Circle is a non-clinical, research-supported method for strengthening:

  • Emotional regulation

  • Social connection

  • Empathy (cognitive, emotional, and embodied)

  • Resilience under stress

  • Collective intelligence

  • Inclusive dialogue

Within Wayfinders, this practice becomes the backbone of rite-of-passage work we do on the wilderness journey.


How the Training Works

This online training includes:

  • Foundational preparation materials - self directed online (5-6 hours)

  • Four live practicum sessions (2.5 hours each)

  • Small cohort format (limited to 12 participants)

  • Real-time facilitation and mentoring practice

  • Direct coaching and feedback

This is experiential training. You will practice facilitating/mentoring — not just learn theory.

Live Practicum Sessions (via Zoom)

April 7 | 3:00 – 5:30 PM Pacific
April 9 | 3:00 – 5:30 PM Pacific
April 14 | 3:00 – 5:30 PM Pacific
April 15 | 3:00 – 5:30 PM Pacific

Register now to access pre course preparation materials

Register

Course Curriculum

    1. Course Prep and Logistics

    2. Participant Agreement

    3. Pre Course Reflection Exercise

    4. Course Resource List

    1. Video Welcome

    2. Resource: Types of Listening Diagram

    3. Resource: Worldwide Cultural Circle Practices and References

    1. Video: The Five Elements and Four Intentions

    2. Resource: Slides to Accompany Video

    3. Quiz: The Listening Circle

    1. Video: Collective Wisdom and The Principles of Facilitative Leadership

    2. Reflection Exercise

    1. Video: The Form of The Listening Circle

    2. Resource: Guiding Principles for The Listening Circle Practice

    3. Resource: An Invitation to Brave Space

    4. Video: Opening and Closing the Circle

    5. Quiz: The Guiding Principles of a Listening Circle

    1. Video: Prompt Forming

    2. Resource: Slides to Accompany Video

    3. Resource: Notes on Prompt Forming

    4. Exercise: Prompt Forming

About this course

  • 9 hours of small group online Practicum with 1:1 Coaching
  • 7 Online self paced modules for pre & post training
  • Invaluable tools and skills for immediate application within your work

Meet Your Instructors

Adam Rumack

Open Circle Co-Founder and CEO

Adam brings a wealth of experience in driving organizational and individual transformation across diverse sectors, including corporations, large-scale non-profits, and the education and criminal justice systems. His profound passion for the outdoors serves as a catalyst, offering insights into the interconnectedness of humanity and the wild, shaping his approach to human-driven systems. In his pursuit of knowledge, Adam has delved into various disciplines, studying under spiritual and religious mentors and exploring the intricacies of economics, human behavior, and performance sciences. A practitioner of holistic stewardship, Adam applies his insights on his land in Coastal Oregon, USA, where he also oversees a nature-based preschool. His multifaceted background uniquely positions him to bridge the realms of organizational transformation, ecological mindfulness, and holistic education.

Miriam Jones

Open Circle Co-Founder

I am a facilitator and guide of transitions. I am a mother, an entrepreneur, a woman growing and expanding into myself in the world. I am committed to contributing my gifts and whatever wisdom I have gained from my experiences to supporting people, organizations and communities moving and growing through change in themselves and in the world. I am offering these retreats and trainings to serve people strengthening their inner compass and heart to be courageous in how they use their gifts and voice in the world. You can find my professional background here and more on Open Circle website here: https://www.weareopencircle.com/about/our-team

This training is for people who want to...

  • Integrate various perspectives and feedback to support impactful development in young adults and their communities.

  • Break free from conventional thinking patterns and listen beyond the confines of preconceived notions and limiting assumptions.

  • Empower yourself and your community with the tools and insights to build trust and connection and support resilience in the face of challenges.

What Do People Say About The Listening Circle Training?

“As a leadership consultant and master coach with over 30 years of experience, working all over the world and facilitating groups, teams, and circles, I had some trepidation about going into this unknown training as a participant. Would the workshop challenge me? Would it hone my understanding of power relations in facilitation? Would I learn something about myself? Would I develop new and useful skills? Would it embody a truly experiential, dialogical, improvisational and exploratory ethos? Would I find the workshop leaders mature, stimulating and inspiring? The answer to each of these questions was a resounding 'YES!'”

Sara 'Zora' Boas, MCC, MA, RDMP, Founding Director, Boas Partners

“I would recommend Open Circle Foundations training because one can learn a creative way of providing a space with care to enter a dialogue that connects participants/trainers in personal ways of finding human commonalities that form conscious ways of challenging beliefs”

Carolynne Abdullah, Racial Equity and Inclusion Consultant

“Excellent pioneering work. The Listening Circle Practice has transformed how I work as a leader and facilitator. Rather than standing in front and leading, this Practice has allowed me to sit with people in Circle, and walk with others as we share our stories and discover together the possibilities beyond what we could imagine on our own.”

Brett Robin Wood, Founder, Creative Wisdom

“The highly skilled team members at Open Circle have a range of listening and facilitation skills that span from formal to informal, inviting to challenging, easy to highly advanced. They are clearly on a mission to humanize the workplace.”

Don Lubach, UC Santa Barbara Ombudsman

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